Activists raise Ukrainian flag over famous Moscow building

Doug Stanglin

Ukrainian activists in the heart of Moscow repainted the communist symbols on top of one of the Stalin-era buildings in the Ukrainian colours of blue and yellow on Wednesday and added a Ukrainian flag.

They had to manoeuvre some tricky territory atop the 32-storey structure – more than 160 metres above the ground – to reach the star, with its hammer and sickle.

The apartment building on the Kotelnicheskaya embankment is one of the seven "wedding cake" skyscrapers built around Moscow from 1938 to 1952.

A photo in a Twitter posting shows a purported worker sent to remove the flag taking a selfie in front of the flag. The Russian news site LifeNews posted a video that it says shows one of the activists parachuting from the top of the building.

Four people were detained on suspicion of being responsible, the ITAR-TASS Russian news agency reports.

The largely residential building, built on the embankment of the Moscow River, was home to famous Soviet-era architects, scholars, artists, writers, military officers and actors.

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Meanwhile, Russia's Agriculture Minister has warned that Moscow must spend billions of dollars in the coming years subsidising farmers in order to avoid a shortage caused by its ban on most Western foods.

Nikolai Fyodorov's comments on Wednesday represented Moscow's first admission that its decision to strike back at US and EU sanctions with sweeping food bans, including those against Australia, may have long-term costs for both its budget and consumers.

The trade war is part of a broader crisis in East-West relations sparked by Russia's perceived attempts to split strife-torn Ukraine in two after Kiev's decision to seek a closer political and economic alliance with Europe.

Russia relies heavily on foreign fruits and vegetables because its long winters and inhospitable climate keep farmers from growing produce desired by the country's booming middle class.

Mr Fyodorov told the Rossiya 24 rolling news channel that "the volume of additional support needed to substitute for the embargoed items in full – if we are talking about short-term, through the end of the year – is tens of billions of roubles".

Ten billion roubles is now worth $297.5 million.

"But there are also medium-term measures: next year and in the subsequent years, you could say that this sum will be measured in the hundreds of billions of roubles," Mr Fyodorov said.